Kaplan Helps Future Lawyers and Doctors in Need Get an Edge in a Competitive Admissions Environment
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Russell Schaffer, russell.schaffer@kaplan.com, 212.453.7538
Carina Wong, carina.wong@kaplan.com, 212.453.7571
New York, NY (June 17, 2010) – As part of ongoing efforts to help students and young professionals succeed, Kaplan Test Prep is donating over $1 million in LSAT and MCAT prep courses to be awarded to students in need seeking to apply to law and medical school. The donation will benefit students at approximately 1,000 colleges and universities across the United States.
The donation of 100 Kaplan LSAT courses was made at this month’s combined national conference of Northeast Association of Pre-Law Advisors (NAPLA) and Southern Association of Pre-Law Advisors (SAPLA), which was held at Duke University. Every advisor in attendance was eligible to receive a scholarship certificate redeemable for any comprehensive Kaplan LSAT classroom, Live Online or LSAT On-Demand course, to be awarded to a deserving student at the advisor’s school. Recipients will benefit from Kaplan’s newly launched LSAT course – a personalized program, which includes, among other offerings, more than 40 hours of supplemental video instruction and online access to every released LSAT, with answers and explanations for all 6,500+ questions and over 37,000 answer choices. According to Kaplan’s annual survey of law school admissions officers, the LSAT is consistently listed as the single most important factor they evaluate applicants on.
To support the aspirations of pre-med students, this week at the national conference of the National Association of Advisors for the Health Professions (NAAHP) in Atlanta, Kaplan is donating over 900 MCAT courses, upon request, to each of the more than 900 pre-med/pre-health advisors in attendance and to those who were unable to attend. The courses are to be awarded to one deserving student at their college or university. For pre-meds, the MCAT remains one of the biggest hurdles to getting into the program of their choice, consistently ranked as the first or second most important admissions factor in Kaplan’s annual survey of medical school admissions officers.
Margaret Kovach, Ph.D., associate professor, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, noted how a past Kaplan donation made a life-changing difference for one student at her school:
“I had a young, but non-traditional student, in my genetics class who was preparing for medical school. She had a degree in geology, but as she put it, she just could not ignore the inescapable, internal voice calling her to the medical profession. She had terrific energy, worked hard and combined with an insatiable curiosity…a great package. Her parents were immigrants from Colombia and Cuba. She had the merit, she had the need, and she had the commitment and desire. She was very appreciative of the MCAT course scholarship because it provided her with an opportunity she would not have had otherwise. It did not go to waste…she got into medical school, and just this past spring earned her M.D.”
“Our mission as a company has always been to help students succeed, and we recognize the advantage test prep provides to students who are seeking admissions to competitive schools,” Jason Moss, vice president, graduate programs, Kaplan Test Prep. “This donation of LSAT and MCAT courses will help aspiring lawyers and doctors who are motivated, but economically challenged, to secure educational resources they need to achieve their career goals.”
Both donations are intended for socio-economically and educationally disadvantaged students; advisors are free to award the course at their discretion to any promising student. Through previous Kaplan donations, many advisors have selected students from under-represented minorities in law and medicine.
In the most recently recorded year, 86,100 aspiring attorneys applied to law school, the biggest jump in applicants since 2003 and the first increase at all since 2004. In that same cycle, 68% of applicants were admitted. In 2009, about 42,000 aspiring doctors applied to medical school, a slight increase over the prior year – only 44% of them were accepted.
About Kaplan Test Prep
Kaplan Test Prep (www.kaptest.com), a division of Kaplan, Inc., is a premier provider of educational and career services for individuals, schools and businesses. Established in 1938, Kaplan is the world leader in the test prep industry. With a comprehensive menu of online offerings and a complete array of books, Kaplan offers preparation for more than 90 standardized tests, including entrance exams for secondary school, college and graduate school, as well as English language and professional licensing exams. Kaplan also provides private tutoring and graduate admissions consulting services.
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